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The Story

(an excerpt of an article by Susanne Guldimann

For thirty years the Godmother of Malibu has cooked up menus for wedding dinners, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, anniversaries, holidays, memorials and just plain lunch for Malibuites. "I love Malibu, it's been very good to me," Godmother owner Dolores Rivellino told the Malibu Surfside News in a recent interview. "I'm lucky. I've been blessed with good friends, family and community."

Rivellino, a native New Yorker who was an administrator at the Jules Stein eye clinic at UCLA before putting her talents as a culinary entrepreneur to work in 1980, says that she had no idea the Godmother would still be going strong after 30 years. "It was a temporary thing," she says. I wanted a change after I left UCLA."

A lifelong love of food led to her new career. "My mother never bought a can of peas or a package of prepared food," Rivellino told The News. "Everything was made from scratch." The Godmother has continued that tradition for 30 years. "I'm very satisfied to have what we have, to have done what we've done," Rivellino says. "People whose weddings we catered, we've done anniversaries for them, christenings, birthdays, and graduation parties, sometimes even funerals. These people have become family."

According to Rivellino, the Godmother has provided feasts--and good advice--to accompany more than 400 weddings in the past 30 years, as well as catering to the culinary requirements of everyday life in Malibu. "I feel blessed," she says.